As the 2024 election draws nearer, both the primary candidates’ campaign fundraising may indicate certain trajectories for the months leading up to the presidential vote.
Starting off the new year strong, President Biden raised over $42 million in January and entered February with over $130 million in cash on hand, according to his campaign- this would set a record-breaking total for a Democratic candidate at this point in a presidential election cycle.
Biden’s campaign reported that January was its strongest grassroots fundraising month since launching in April 2023, considering 97% of its donations have been under $200 since then.
The sum, which was raised through President Biden’s main campaign committee, his two joint fundraising committees, and the Democratic National Committee, comes as polling shows the president with an underwater approval rating and tied with- or trailing- former president Donald Trump in what likely seems to be a general election rematch from 2020.
On the other hand, Trump’s fundraising process hasn’t been as strong, given his financial reliance on the GOP Treasury to support his ongoing legal disputes and his campaign.
Trump’s campaign started the year with $33 million on hand, but has yet to disclose its fundraising totals for January.
“While Team Biden-Harris continues to build on its fundraising machine, Republicans are divided- either spending money fighting Donald Trump, or spending money in support of Donald Trump’s extreme and losing agenda,” said the Biden-Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez.
However, Biden’s fundraising strength over Trump is not a guarantee among all non-Republican demographics.
While Democratic base voters have said preventing Trump from winning another term is a higher priority, most independents in the poll believe either that only Trump, 77, has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president in comparison to Biden, 81, or that neither of them do.
Yet, the contrasts in the two campaigns fundraising results could possibly reveal the differing priorities of the two candidates on their roads to a potential second term of presidency.
While Biden may have lost some popularity due to his age and has performed adequately in polls, his campaign has still been constantly striving for new sources of aid- whereas Trump’s lack of attention to traditional campaigning, connections to legal conflicts, focus on shoe-branding, and reliance on the GOP Treasury is setting him behind financially.
In the three days after the Iowa caucuses in mid-January, when Trump won the Republican polls by 30 points, Biden’s campaign said it raised $1 million each day. It also claimed that the campaign averaged about $1 million in 24-hour-hauls at the end of January.
